Adrian Kavanagh, 2nd January 2014

This post will attempt to list all of the “New Irish”/Non-Irish/UK nationals candidates who have been officially selected to contest this year’s local elections, or else have declared their intentions to contest these elections as independent candidates. This post will also include those candidates who have subsequently gained Irish citizenship on moving to, or after moving to, Ireland.

At present (as of 8th May 2014) I can account for thirty one candidacies in this group, including eight female (25.8%) and twenty three male (74.2%) candidates.One candidate – Lech Szczeciński – is contesting three different electoral areas (Crumlin-Kimmage, Howth-Malahide and Swords). As in 2009, most of these candidates are contesting the election as independent candidates (twenty one), with two candidates running for Fine Gael, two candidates running for Labour, one candidate running for Sinn Fein, three candidates running for the Green Party and two candidates running for the People Before Profit Alliance.

Krzysztof Luszczki had announced his intention to contest the local elections in Limerick City as an independent candidate, but he did not subsequently go forward to contest the election.

A significant proportion of these candidates (thirteen), at present, are contesting electoral areas in Dublin. But the electoral area with the highest number of “New Irish” candidates, at present, is the Ennis Municipal District in Co. Clare, followed by the Portlaoise Municipal District, Co. Laois.

Ten of the candidacies included in this list are Polish (involving eight different people, given that Szczeciński is contesting three different constituencies). At least six of these candidates are Nigerian.

One member of this group, Rotimi Adebari, is a sitting County and Town Councillor, representing the Portlaoise electoral area in Co. Laois.

Non-Irish/UK nationals currently account for 10.7% of the Irish population based on the most recent Census of 2011. If the proportion of non-Irish/UK nationals local election candidates contesting the May 23rd election elections was similar to this, there would be 218 of them selected/declared to contest these (based on a current overall candidate number of 2,036 as of 8th May) as of this point in time.

At the 2009 City and County Council elections, I estimate that 19 New Irish candidates contested these elections, with three running for Fianna Fail, two running for Fine Gael, one running for Labour and three running for the Green Party, while the other ten contested the elections as independent candidates. One of these nineteen candidates was successful – Rotimi Adebari in Portlaoise, who had previously won a Town Council in 2004. Of course, a number of other New Irish candidates contested the Town and Borough Council elections in 2009, where the smaller, more urban constituencies, offered great potential for electoral success. In 2004, two New Irish candidates – Taiwo Matthew in Ennis and Rotimi Adebari in Portlaoise – had won seats on Town Councils. In 2009, I estimate that 23 New Irish candidates contested the Town and Borough Council elections, although some of these (including Adebari) also contested County Council elections.  There was almost an even gender divide here, with 12 of these candidate being male and 11 being female. What is especially interesting here is that – as opposed to the trend for the City and County Council elections of 2009, and indeed for the 2014 Local Election – political party candidates tend to predominate here. While seven candidates ran as independents, six others ran for Fianna Fail, three ran for Fine Gael, one ran for Labour and six ran for the Green Party. Just two of these twenty three candidates were successful – Adebari in Portlaoise and the Green Party’s Kristina Jankaitiene in Carrickmacross.

The list of New Irish candidates for the 2014 election is presented below. This list will be updated, as and when new candidate information is received by me, up until after the close of candidate nominations at 12.00pm on Saturday May 3rd 2014. If there are any candidates who should be included on this list (or are included here, but should not be) or if any other errors in relation to this list are noted, please bring these to my attention by emailing me at adrian.p.kavanagh@nuim.ie.

This post was last updated on Monday 5th May 2014.